Three Rings (The Fairytail Saga) (28 page)

‘But I’ve complied for almost forty years!’ Lux cried. ‘Willingly. Doesn’t that merit me a bit of trust?’

‘A bit.’ Vana conceded. ‘But if you want more, I suggest that you keep your feelings for Lincoln to yourself.’

Lux lifted her chin. ‘And if I don’t have any feelings for Link?’

Vana sighed. ‘Sorry-feelings, attraction, either or…it all leads to a bed in the end.’

‘And what if this wasn’t about me wanting him?’ Lux asked quietly. ‘Just wanting to break them up?’

Vana looked at her reproachfully. ‘Then it’s just heartless, and you’d lose any trust I have. Why do you bring that up?’

‘Because I’m still wondering where my trust lies.’ Lux said quietly. With that, she turned back to the house, leaving Vana alone and very confused.

⁓

After forty five minutes of weaving through the islands at a cracking pace, Lincoln started to wonder if Ivyanne was actually going somewhere, or simply fleeing. Lincoln grit his teeth and concentrated his lower body muscles on flicking the tip of his tail, which gave him a short burst of speed. He got close enough to keep her in sight, but it wasn’t until she suddenly turned and headed for a submerged land mass at last, that he was able to gain on her.

Lincoln was relieved that she was heading for the shore. He felt like his skull was about to fracture from the sheer volume of new and panicked thoughts which had overcome him the moment he realized that Ardhi was really and truly alive and dripping on Vana’s kitchen floor. Being unable to voice any of those thoughts or questions, only to cruise along, frantically trying to keep up with the speedy princess, was driving him insane. They were surrounded by coral and beautiful marine life and yet it was all insignificant to him that day. He had questions and he needed them answered before he stroked out.

The first and foremost being of course: Why had she run? What was her question?

He saw her beach herself, and he exhaled the rest of his oxygen store in a massive sigh, following her, not bothering to transition, sensing that she probably wouldn’t. She’d torn off her clothes and left them behind in her haste to enter the water at Bracken, so staying in her tail would be a means to preserve some modesty on the surface.

Some...but not all. A shiver went through him as he realized that her upper half would be as bare as his. For a moment, he forgot his hysteria and concentrated on getting to her before she could artfully arrange her hair.

But when the water slanted to the sand and Lincoln emerged on the shore, it became apparent that modesty was the last thing on her mind. Ivyanne had already maneuvered herself into a cluster of rocks near a tidal pool to his right, leaving a drag mark in the wet sand behind her. Lincoln pushed the excess water out of his eyes and frowned to see curl up into a ball on her side and sob like her heart was breaking.

‘Ivyanne?’ He asked, filling with fear-wanting to ease her tears but unsure of how to go about it given that he had no idea why she was falling apart to begin with. Were they cathartic tears of relief for Ardhi’s return? Or something else?

Ivyanne didn’t respond, only cried harder, tucking her face into her brilliant blue scales and shuddering anew.

‘Okay.’ He said, more to himself than to her, suddenly feeling drained. He crawled clumsily after her, moving until his body formed a protective curve behind her back, then shifting her until they were nestled against the side of the largest rock, hidden from view. He pressed his lips into her shoulder, relieved that she didn’t shove him away.

‘It’s okay honey,’ he whispered. ‘Cry now, explain later. I’ll always be waiting on the other side.’

Ivyanne nodded and hiccuped, and Lincoln squeezed his eyes shut, her pain tormenting him even as her closeness, and the ring glinting on her balled fist, filled him with joy.

⁓

Ivyanne wept without knowing why, dreamt without focus and dug her fingers into the wet sand beneath her, wondering if this was the meltdown her mother had alluded to weeks before. Sure, she had fallen to pieces over Tristan, but this was something else. Emotions wreaked havoc within her stomach, and every sob seemed forced out of her by her pounding and agonized heart.

Lincoln’s arms tightened around her and Ivyanne’s misery lifted momentarily, reveling in his warmth, proximity and understanding.

It didn’t matter if she didn’t understand why she was falling apart. All that mattered was that Lincoln held her through it. And that no one dared suggest an alternative option for her hand again.

Even if he was as powerful as their creator.

Lincoln woke slowly, his consciousness chipping out fragments of his dream in a random, lazy manner, allowing facets of reality in.

In his dream he’d been on the timber seat of his family’s old boat, but nothing about his position was as firm or unforgiving as that little old thing had been. Instead, he was sinking into something warm and gritty and damp, and the air buffeting him was hot and dry and caressed rather than chilled him-not like the icy winds which had howled across Bas Strait back then. There’d never been a jacket thick or waterproof enough to insulate his body heat on those excursions. Most of the time, he’d been miserable.

In his dream, he’d been watching his mother teach him wordlessly how to tie a knot around a sinker, grayish slight streaming through her dark hair as her pale fingers pulled the knot tightly, binding the weight in place. But in reality his eyes were closed, his only view being the dull red glow behind his eyelids.

In his dream, he’d been wearing his old high school jersey, maroon and blue with its kinked white collar that would never iron flat. But in reality, he was so warm that it was almost unbearable save for the ocean breeze he now recognised wafting across his shoulders. The sensation was incredible, like lying in body-heated sheets on a chilly day. He curled around Adele, squeezing her against him, wondering what perfume she’d bought now, because it smelled good. Incredible, in fact. Like heaven ought to.

Adele.
Adele?
His sub-conscious set off the alarm-indicating that he was missing something BIG. Lincoln’s eyes flew open, and he found himself staring at the ridges of a spine that was familiar to him yet being viewed at a foreign angle. It was bare, so bare, so consistent in its bronze tone that it looked like the photoshopped back of some model in a magazine. Not a mole, nor a pore or even a mosquito bite marred its surface, and it expanded gently with every breath she took.

Not Adele!
Recognition bubbled his blood.
Ivyanne!

The princess’s shoulder was obscured by the fountain of golden waves that she’d swept to her front in slumber, but he could see the perfect, un-pierced lobe of her ear and the shadowed curve of her jaw. And like every other part of her, they were glorious, making his lips almost pulse with the need to press them against her skin.

We fell asleep.
He swept his gaze upwards, being careful not to move a millimeter for fear of waking her. The sun was still overhead but sinking over the tall clusters of rocks surrounding them. How long had they been out? An hour? Two? He didn’t remember drifting off, only holding her while she sobbed.

But the tears had stopped now and she was suspended in the un self-conscious grace of a slumbering princess. A
naked,
slumbering princess who had wedged every lickable curve of her body against the sharper planes of his own. Her grief was no longer serving as a distraction, nor was his empathy acting as a buffer. He looked down and the slope of her backside nuzzled against his hips-at her tawny skin against his sun-darkened own, and like a fuel-station ignited by a tiny spark, heat engulfed him, the flames violent and vicious. Ivyanne Court was naked in his arms on a tropical beach in the middle of nowhere and…. Lincoln shifted slightly, gazing over her mass of curls to the arms she had crossed over her chest, to hug herself. Her left hand was closest to him, and there was his ring on her elegant finger.

Ivyanne Court...wearing his mothers ring. His fiancé….his Ivanna.
His.
Possession claimed his muscles and he flexed, pulling her tighter still, unable to resist lowering his mouth to her shoulder and planting a soft, wet kiss on the first part of her he could make contact with. She tasted like salt and powdered sugar and his cock thickened where it pressed against her. There was a twinge in his gut, telling him it was wrong-she’d been distraught the last time she’d been awake-and yet that taste overrode his guilt. His lips brushed across her shoulder blade to the tiny tattoo on the nap of her neck and he groaned, breathing in her scent which was more concentrated there, thanks to the proximity of her hair. He inhaled her, his lungs expanded with her, and then stretched the hand of the arm beneath her until his fingers could close around her plush, moist curls. He squeezed, and his erection twitched again. He wanted that hair in his face, wrapped around his wrist, and falling like a veil between them as she leaned into his lap and-

‘Hmm.’ Ivyanne’s murmur was soft as she burrowed back against him, closing any remaining space between his flesh and hers. Lincoln froze, locking his jaw as the pleasure rushed over him, both aroused beyond imagining, and terrified that she’d wake up and distance herself, or maybe even tell him off for being a pervert for molesting her in her sleep.

But after the longest five seconds he’d ever endured, she began to breathe again deeply and evenly, still lost to sleep, too exhausted from the emotional battery of Ardhi’s return to realize that there was a paralysed, naked man pressed against her slightly curled thighs.

Lincoln kept his face pressed to the back of her neck, determined to make the most of this moment, and lock every second away in his memory for when they were old and grey and drew more pleasure from playing boardgames together then simply lying there.

Or at least, before
she
did. Lincoln suspected his ache for her would never fade, especially if she continued to look like this for another hundred years!

Lincoln closed his eyes briefly and grinned, biting his lip in case the smile grew so wide that she’d hear it. Never in his life had he felt so excited and at peace simultaneously. The secrets were gone, his rival had perished, and his ring was on her hand. So long as Ardhi understood how things had changed, their life together was a guarantee.

And her body...the object of his every fantasy, from young adult to wearied adult to merman-was his for the claiming. But
when?

Lincoln’s lips found her skin again and he nuzzled her as gently as he could manage, feeling drawn to her, instead of actively pursuing. He opened his hands and spread his fingers to caress a larger area of her crossed arms, but instead of stroking muscle, his thumbs brushed against something fuller, fleshier and lush. Her beautiful, achingly soft breasts-bare to his touch.

Ivyanne’s intake of breath was so sharp that Lincoln’s lips broke contact with her skin when her chest expanded. He froze once more, not breathing himself, and not moving his hands either. He’d sooner
sever
his hands than reposition them now, and if that was the price he had to pay then he’d accept the penance without complaint.

Seconds passed, and nothing changed. She didn’t reciprocate, but she didn’t roll away and throw sand in his eyes either. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he exhaled slowly, seeing the fine tendrils of hair around her ear shiver with his breath, and changed his grip-sliding his fingers under her arms and greedily cupping her breasts-what he could get of them-and squeezing ever so gently, making his appreciation known.

Ivyanne gasped in response, her tailbone arching against his erection and eliciting a grunt from him. In reflex, Lincoln curved around her, slinging one of his long, naked legs over both of hers, pinning her to him, before he sank his teeth gently into the side of her long neck.

‘Uh!’ Ivyanne’s head thrust back, granting him more access, and adrenalin flooded his bloodstream. His hands were tucked between her upper arms and the sides of her breasts and it was hot and tight there. With the silky flesh of her buttocks nuzzling his erection at the same time, straining against it, it was all too much, and still not enough.

How much further will she let me go?
Lincoln wondered, already feeling grief-stricken at the idea of her pulling away. But even as he questioned his next course of action, his hands took the initiative and kneaded her swollen tits, sliding his pointer fingers until they glanced off her nipples. The perfect little peaks had hardened by the time his fingers swept back across them, and he followed suit, rolling his hips against her backside, needing to let out some tension while terrified that one stroke too many against her satiny skin would undo him. The pleasure rewarded by this action made his eyes roll back into his head and he released her neck again, gasping for air. He wasn’t just hard, or turned on, or eager-he was
dizzy
.

‘Oh…’ Ivyanne’s soft mewl was only just audible, but there was no mistaking her own state of arousal when her hand swept up and landed firmly on his hip, opening her chest so that her breasts overflowed in his palms. And as she welcomed this caress, her delicate little hand slid down his backside then firmly up again, urging him against her.
Jerking
him against her. If he’d suspected that she was stronger than him before, he had no doubt now, because her action was so swift and hard that his erection was forced between the snugness of her clenched thighs before he could stop it. The sensation it caused was so explosive that he feared he would pass out from the pleasure.

‘Ugh…’ Lincoln’s teeth snapped together violently, and the pain yanked him back from the precipice of release. Years of torture, years of temptation and fear and loss culminated between their legs in a heat that could have razed a city to cinders, but he couldn’t allow himself to submerge into it yet, he needed this moment to last.

Part of him, a sliver, attempted to warn him that they were moving too fast and too suddenly-there were questions to be asked: Why was she going along with this? Had she intended to bed him when they were engaged, or was this a spur of the moment decision on her part? Was she in the right state of mind to be doing this after having cried over Ardhi all morning? Would she regret doing this if she got pregnant? Did she still love Tristan?